My first thought was 'Nur Mahal', but that's just based on photos. It's a rose I've tried to order once or twice, but without it being available. One of these days...

I didn't look at thr RVR site to see if they stock it; are all of their mystery roses items that they list in their inventory? They aren't listed as a 'Nur Mahal' seller in the HMF record...

It's lovely, whatever it is.

Virginia

Actually, my first guess was "Sophie's Perpetual". In the pics I recognized some odd-angle smooth canes. Are the flowers fragrant?

Virginia, if you really want 'Nur Mahal', email Linda Loe at Long Ago Roses. I know she carries it, and she may have one available.

:-)

~Christopher

'Sophie's Perp' is a good thought, Christopher; the coloring is right, and RVR does carry it. The habit of my SP is different, but that could be down to how it was grown/environment.

I have tried to get 'Nur Mahal' from Linda Loe before, but it wasn't available then. Maybe next year.

Virginia

I grew 'Nur Mahal' for several years. It's normally much more crimson--the Slater's Crimson China sort of crimson--than I see in these pix. I never saw it have anything approaching pink at all.

odinthor, why did you stop growing 'Nur Mahal'? If it has 'issues', it might be good to know that before I try to order it again...

Thanks,

Virginia

OK, I dug up pics of my "Sophie's Perpetual" from my facebook garden albums. I'm skipping its first pic, taken after being potted up when it arrived, because it was just so sorry-looking. The poor thing was dried out in the shipping box, but perked up nicely after a good soaking.

ANYWAY......here we go.

June 23, 2013 -- two months after arrival, pot placed where it was to be planted, so take note of position

May 10, 2014

May 28, 2014 -- bloom

May 9, 2015 -- hard to see, but note angles of canes

May 25, 2015 -- closer shot showing angles of canes, and second shows bloom close-up

May 27, 2015 -- pic taken in less sun

July 7, 2015 -- you can see that when I dead-head, I try to "reel it in" by cutting back to an eye that points where I want it to grow

What I can't capture in pics is the scent. To my nose, it's a typical sweet Damask found among many Bourbons. Also, the colors deepen with exposure to sun, so they usually finish darker than when they start. And finally, "Sophie's Perpetual" has smooth canes, with perhaps some hooks under the leaves. Compare this to yours.

:-)

~Christopher

Ahhhh, Sophie's Perpetual - you're right that does look like a perfect fit. Rogue Valley's photo is much lighter, so I didn't notice this one when thumbing through their online catalog. Besides, I'm in zone 5 and a china/bourbon is an uphill battle for me. Still, if I can keep several teas alive and blooming in zone 5 for 6 years or more, I have a good chance at keeping Sophie's Perpetual alive. I checked hmf and there are several growers in Germany and one in Nevada that have this rose in zone 6, and my "fussy pants" rose bed on the south side of my house is typically a zone 6 in habits and rose survival. I'll have to move her from where she is (the lazy part of me sighs) but at least she's still small and should be able to move fairly seamlessly keeping her full shovelful of dirt.

Christopher - thanks so much for all the great photos and tutorial on pruning her. I hadn't noticed the angular canes or even the thornlessness (hey, she's small), but I can definitely see the pattern of your pruning to reshape her. Not that mine is going to be anything like as big as yours - if mine gets to the height of the last photo I'll be happy. Do chinas go dormant in the cold or are they as fussy as teas about not going dormant and resenting severe pruning after the winter? In my zone, I rarely have a choice, so the teas are pruned to the ground like it or not. Madame Antoine Mari usually shrugged it off quickly, and Duchess de Brabant has already forgiven me and been through a few blooms, but Maman Cochet is only now deigning to put out a bud or two to test the waters here in mid-July.

Odinthor, I agree that my Nur Mahal is a more consistent crimson color and not one that would fit this plant. And at least in my case, Virginia, I have had absolutely no problems with it. I have mine on the cold side of the house (effectively zone 4) in relatively poor soil and part sun, and he's taking off nicely. It doesn't have BS enough to bother it in my yard, but VA is a different world from my BS world, and I wouldn't know if it mildews since we rarely get that. I got mine from Long Ago roses too, and hmf lists several other places that sell this one: Antique Rose Emporium, Angel Gardens, Rose Petals Nursery, and Roses Unlimited. Any of those should be relatively cheap shipping for you on the east coast. Here's a recent shot of mine - not particularly filled out yet, as it's just approaching its third year, but it's starting to bloom basically year round. Now I need to get to some of that shaping pruning that Christopher mentioned. That is, if it would stop blooming long enough for me to get my pruners going in between flushes.

Thanks to all of you for providing your insights on this Sophie's Perpetual rose! It'll be a challenge to keep her happy but it's an achievable challenge, and it's such fun to be able to tackle these when the opportunity is simply dropped in my lap. If she doesn't survive the first time around, I'll have learned something, and she clearly sounds worth the effort to make this work.

Cynthia

odinthor, why did you stop growing 'Nur Mahal'? If it has 'issues', it might be good to know that before I try to order it again... Virginia, actually I liked it; but I had bought it to bestow fragrance on the garden, and . . . Well, there's a story, which I've told elsewhere long ago. In short, though it performed well, bloomed nicely, was a nice color, was healthy and green, I was chagrined that it didn't have a fragrance, so one day decided to take it out. It pains me to throw perfectly good flowers into the trash, so, first thing, I cut off the good blossoms and put them into a vase in the house. I then returned to 'Nur Mahal', cut down the big bush, and dug out the roots, finding it to be one of those roses which send their roots straight down all the way to China, and I was quite some time at the task. Achieving success at last, though, it was finally time to rest after all of this exertion, so dragged my weary bones into the house . . . and found the house full of the delicious perfume of 'Nur Mahal' . . . It had no fragrance outside under my conditions, but plenty of fragrance indoors. Let that be a lesson of some sort to us all!

If I were you, I'd try to keep it in a pot and cart it into the garage when temperatures go below 20F. Even if you do decide to plant it in the garden, giving it shelter from its first Winter will give it a head start on having enough root system to survive being cut back to the soil line later. Or just keep it in a pot, say 15" diameter or larger, and keep it in the garage every Winter. Kept in a pot, its odd angular growth will drape over and look attractive. I've read of several other people growing it in a pot, and there are some pics of it this way on HelpMeFind.

Mine gets smacked into dormancy with the first hard frosts, which means having to cut back some Winter damage by Spring. I'm starting to think that the "Teas resent pruning" information is more about cutting into growth that's more than a year old. My "Bermuda Spice" has to be cut back pretty hard in Spring, but bounces back to over 4-feet high and wide by the end of the season. 'Lady Hillingdon' wasn't as vigorous in its first year, and so what little top growth it had by that first horrible Winter a year and a half ago was just not up to handling the cold. It had to be cut back to the soil line. But after last Winter it managed to keep almost 12" of top growth, and is now bursting with new shoots. I think the key to rebounding from hard pruning in Spring is having enough heat during Summer to promote growth. And this is probably why Teas and Chinas were said to "lack vigor" when grown in England -- their Winters are milder, but their Summers are as well. So while there's less Winter damage, there isn't much heat to push them during the growing season, and they just sorta crawl along.

:-)

~Christopher

Odinthor, ouch! That hurt!

Cynthia, that's a lovely photo of 'Nur Mahal', and I'm glad to get a good report on him (and from odinthor), so I do think I'll keep trying. Third time's the charm, right? And, yes, I am glad to note that several nurseries carry it that are not too far away from us. I should be able to get my (order) timing right one day soon, but I'm not ordering any more roses until at least September... it's just too hot now.

I just got 'Sophie's Perpetual' last month, and I can tell already that she'll be a favorite. And she's actually one of the first roses I had a crush on when I first started looking at various old roses.

odinthor, I am so sorry. It's a good- somewhat tragicomic- story, but at least I'm glad to find confirmation that it's as good a rose as I thought it was. I'm also hoping for outdoor fragrance, so I hope my conditions are sufficiently different from yours that I'll be able to get at least some fragrance outside.

Thanks,

Virginia

I love Nur Mahal. Fantastic rose! Christopher thanks for all the info.

Nipp, just wanted to say that Poema is a gorgeous rose. Got it from Burling. Many clusters. Vigorous. Sophie's Perpetual is one of the enigmatic duds of my garden. Anything BUT perpetual.

Susan

Susan -- if you got yours as a band, it may just need time. The rose you see in my 2015 pics is two years old, but so are most of my other roses. Mine doesn't bloom "perpetually" but does keep having flushes. I think mine is simply two small to have more than a few flowers at a time. Right now, its tallest tip is still under 3-feet, and there are only two canes coming out of the ground. How large is yours? And how old?

:-)

~Christopher

Christopher mine is 4 years old and less than a foot tall. I think it needs repotting. I had a MAC for two years that didn't grow nor bloom. I took it out of the 1G pot to see if it had any roots and it was root bound. Now it is really growing! The languishers get banished to the pot ghetto AND she is in an unmarked pot. I will seek her out tomorrow. Love her bloom (notice the singular). Your pics inspired me!

Susan

My "magic mix" for getting bands to grow was tweaked again this year, and I think I'm sticking with its current recipe. It's also become my "standard potting mix" for anything else that doesn't have specific requirements. Try it for yourself.

By volume, mix 3 parts peat moss, 1 part Perlite, 1 part Vermiculite, and 1 part Bovung dehydrated manure. For each gallon of total mix, add 1/2 cup balanced dry organic fertilizer. How to know how many gallons you have? Well, using a 1-gal bucket for scooping the parts means you have six gallons of mix, meaning 3 cups of fertilizer added. This year I went with Plant Tone because I found it in big bags for cheaper than any of the others in smaller bags for the quantity I needed. When potted, I've been adding 1/2" of used coffee grounds as a top-layer simply because I'm still collecting it from Starbucks and have plenty of it. I find that it works well to mask the scent of warm and moist Bovung mixed in the pots, if you know what I mean.

Next year, I'm thinking of trying some Lavender in pots. I'll be using this mix again, but since Lavender likes sharp drainage and alkaline soil, I'll be using half "magic mix" mixed with something coarse and alkaline, like crushed oyster shells and/or limestone grit. I'm also thinking of blueberries, but for them I'd use an acidic fertilizer instead of the Plant-Tone. It seems more work than just buying pre-mixed stuff, but with all these pots, it's much cheaper to make my own by getting big bags of the basic ingredients from Home Depot. And I don't have to worry about any synthetic fertilizer added that may burn tender roots.

:-)

~Christopher

That's great Christopher! Thank you for sharing. I also add bone meal when I pot up my rooted cuttings. I will try your mix.

Im successfully growing a lavender hedge here using Lavender "Grosso" and amending the soil with poultry grit and builders sand.

Thanks for the tip about keeping my Sophie in a pot, Christopher, and if I weren't absolutely pathetic at growing anything in a pot, it would certainly be the wisest thing. Heck, I've killed everything from philodendrons to spider plants in weeks inside, and the quickest way to kill poor Sophie outside would be to pot her up. In fact, as Roserich comments, the only time it decided to grow at all was when I planted her in my "starter" spot in the yard for RV mysteries I haven't figured out yet. She'll have to take her chances in the "fussy pants" bed, but I dearly appreciate the warning to use a warmer spot.

Glad you like the photo of Nur Mahal, Virginia, and it sounds like OdinThor has nothing but good things to share (in retrospect). So it sounds like I should try cutting a spray to bring inside to check out the fragrance? I have the world's worst rose nose - as bcroselover said on another thread, if my eyes were as bad as my nose I'd be legally blind. Still, it's a good experiment to try.

Thanks for the tip too about Poema, RoseRich. I routinely order from Burlington and Rogue Valley anyway so I'll have to keep an eye on that one from either of them.

Cynthia

Christopher have you ever tired Al's gritty mix (1 part wood bark fines/ 1 part turface/ 1 part granite or the 5-1-1 mix (5 parts wood bark fines/ 1 part perlite/ 1 part peat moss).

They are a bit labor intensive as they are extremely well drained/aerated. That means more or less daily watering in very hot days, but the results are quite impressive. I haven't tried them with roses, but with several woody plants.

Here's a link in case you weren't aware of it...

I don't think those mixes are meant for roses, which like rich soil. I think they're meant more for things like fruiting trees, tropicals, etc. I've read posts about how they're used, and they're on the verge of becoming hydroponic media. Mine is working just fine for my needs, but if I ever got into the plants grown in that way, I'd consider those other mixes.

:-)

~Christopher

Christopher as far as I know, you can grow anything in them.

As I said, the watering/fertigation regimen is somewhat exacting and not suited for people who travel a lot....

As for the fertilization, you do it either every week or at every watering with a chemical fertilizer or you add time released pellets.....

It's the "watering/fertilization regimen" that makes me think those mixes are approaching hydroponics. With mine, all I do is water every few days if we go that long without rain, and that's with the 1- and 2-gal containers. The 15" pots and 22" barrels barely need any attention, since we get rain fairly regularly. In Spring, I "refresh" by scratching in some more Plant-Tone and giving a top-dressing of used coffee grounds. For my needs and for what I grow in it, I'm happier with my mix than bothering with everything involved in making and using the other two.

:-)

~Christopher

You're absolutely right about on all accounts. This system is designed from the plant's preference not humans :-)